Flaccid stretching is a thing of the past. If you truly want to stretch your body from its superficial layers of muscle and fascia all the way down to the periosteum around your bones then there is only one way to do that. Move impeccably. When the muscles on one side of our bodies contract it sends signals to the muscles on the opposite side to lengthen or “stretch”. Passive stretching completely ignores that fact that our muscles are interconnected. It causes your body to dysfunctionally adapt to over lengthened and flaccid muscle conditions.
When we sprint shockwaves are sent through our bodies. These shockwaves send vibrations that reverberate across our nuero myofascial skeletal systems. The better we move, the more these vibrations travel throughout our bodies. When we move poorly the less these shockwaves travel. Instead of being sent through your body from head to toe they tend to stop at the knee or hip or back etc. This is where pains begin to settle in.
If you want every step you take to signal regeneration instead of degeneration in your body then having the right muscle tensions is key. In order to program proper muscle tension in your body you need to understand this relationship between contracted muscles signaling opposing muscles to “stretch” or lengthen. Passive stretching doesn’t account for this but we have revolved our training system around this idea since the beginning.
Thanks @_a_j_martinez_ for the FP movement clip.
